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Thursday, 7 January 2010

The effectiveness of wind power

The BBC report that:
"Demand for gas in the UK is set to hit a new record on Thursday as people attempt to keep their homes warm through the severely cold weather.

The National Grid estimates usage will reach 455.3 million cubic metres. The current record is 449 million cubic metres, set on 7 January 2003.

The National Grid has issued its second gas balancing alert in three days, asking suppliers to provide more gas.

Some factories have been told their gas supplies will be reduced."
Thankfully in the near future we will have many more wind farms to produce power for us. The various warehouse wind turbines that I pass on most days seem to have been pretty stationary during this cold spell and that is usually the way with very cold weather in this Country it isn't accompanied by wind but calm.

Take a look at Logica's BM Reports site and you will discover that whilst the temperature over the last month has fallen from 12 degrees Celsius to 0 degrees Celsius, the wind forecast has dropped by over 90% over the last three days alone. Meanwhile the same report shows that over the last 24 hours power generation in the UK was as follows: 42.9% Oil, 39.2% Gas, 16.3% Nuclear which makes a total of 98.4%. Don't worry, wind power doesn't even make up all of the remaining 1.6%, in fact it only makes up 0.3%. I wonder if the BBC will mention this problem with wind power when they next evangelise about the wonders of alternative energy sources? I think not.

1 comment:

MU said...

The less wind farms the better. Due to the pressure gradients they create aswell as the huge spinning blades they massacre bats, which throws the ecosystem into whack because then insects in the fields aren't devoured by the flying mice.

End result: Small independent farms suffer, while big agribusiness firms with money for intensive pesticide use profit from the subsidies. Another step on the road towards corporatism married to the big state.